FOR THE FREEDOM
OF THE SEAS

By Ralph Henry Barbour

PURPLE PENNANT SERIES

• The Lucky Seventh
• The Secret Play
• The Purple Pennant

YARDLEY HALL SERIES

• Forward Pass
• Double Play
• Winning His Y
• For Yardley
• Around the End
• Change Signals

HILTON SERIES

• The Half-back
• For the Honor of the School
• Captain of the Crew

ERSKINE SERIES

• Behind the Line
• Weatherby’s Inning
• On Your Mark

THE “BIG FOUR” SERIES

• Four in Camp
• Four Afoot
• Four Afloat

THE GRAFTON SERIES

• Rivals for the Team
• Winning His Game
• Hitting the Line

BOOKS NOT IN SERIES

• For the Freedom of the Seas
• Keeping His Course
• The Brother of a Hero
• Finkler’s Field
• Danforth Plays the Game
• Benton’s Venture
• The Junior Trophy
• The New Boy at Hilltop
• The Spirit of the School
• The Arrival of Jimpson

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York

[“Hands up!”]

FOR THE FREEDOM
OF THE SEAS

BY

RALPH HENRY BARBOUR
AUTHOR OF
“KEEPING HIS COURSE,” “HITTING THE LINE,”
“WINNING HIS GAME,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY
CHARLES L. WRENN

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

To

THOMAS LATIMER

of Groton, Connecticut
with the Author’s
greetings

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

CHAPTER I
THE WAY OF THE HUN

The three-masted schooner Jonas Clinton was loafing along in a six-knot breeze some five hundred miles off the coast of France. For the time of year, the middle of October, the Atlantic in those latitudes was unusually docile and there was scarcely enough swell to slant the schooner’s deck. Overhead, a moon in its first quarter was playing hide-and-seek in a bank of purple-black clouds. The night—the ship’s clock in the cabin had just struck five bells—was so mild that the helmsman had not yet troubled to button his heavy reefer.

Light winds, or no wind at all, had been the Jonas Clinton’s fortune for a month. The eastward voyage had been made in twenty-two days, Boston to Havre, but once rid of her cargo of lubricating oil for the armies in France, she had been forced to swing at anchor for two weeks. At last, despairing of a fair wind, Captain Troy had had the schooner towed across to Falmouth, England. Another wait had followed, a delay especially regrettable when ships were scarce and freight rates high. But at last a brisk breeze had started the Jonas Clinton on her homeward voyage only to peter out at the end of the second day, leaving the skipper, who, as half owner in the ship, was deeply concerned in her fortunes, decidedly glum. The skipper’s frame of mind was reflected by everyone else aboard, from Mr. Cupples, the mate, down to the latest addition to the crew of eight, the tall, raw-boned Nova Scotian lad who, whatever his real name might be, was known as “Bean Pole”; though the gloom extended in a lesser degree to two inhabitants of the four hundred ton craft, Nelson Troy and Pickles.

These two were at the moment seated side by side on the forward hatch, as though awaiting this introduction. Nelson, Captain Troy’s son, was seventeen, a well-built, nice-looking lad who was making his second voyage in his father’s ship. He was down on the ship’s papers as apprentice, since a merchant vessel may not carry passengers, but his position as a member of the crew was nominal rather than actual. Not, however, that he didn’t take a hand when there was something to be done, for he had picked up a fair amount of sailoring, and, perhaps, had inherited a taste for it. He was a broad-shouldered, healthy boy, full of fun and very fond of Pickles.

Pickles was—well, Pickles was just Pickles. First of all, he was a dog. Beyond that I hesitate to go. Leo, the big, two-fisted Swede who had sailed with Captain Troy for seven years, declared that “he ban part wolf-dog an’ part big fool.” But that was scarcely fair to Pickles, because, no matter how mixed he was in the matter of breed, he was certainly no fool. Even Terry, the cook, acknowledged that. No dog capable of stealing a piece of mutton as big as his head from right under the cook’s nose can rightly be called a fool. And Terry didn’t call him a fool, although he applied several other names to him! Visibly, Pickles was yellow as to color, shaggy as to coat, loving and faithful as to disposition. For the rest, he was long-legged and big in the shoulders, and just too much for a lapful.

Captain Troy, keeping the first watch, came along the deck from the stern, a tall, rather gaunt figure in the dim light, and paused where Nelson and Pickles sat. The captain was well on toward fifty and had followed the sea, boy and man, for more than thirty years, just as his father and his father’s father before him had followed it. Several generations of Troys had been born within sight and sound of Casco Bay and had taken to the sea as naturally and inevitably as ducks take to water. The captain was a slow-speaking man, with a deep and pleasant voice that could, when occasion demanded, bellow like a liner’s fog-horn. He was a good Master, stern but never unjust, and a good father to the boy who sat there holding the front half of the dog across his knees. Nelson not only loved his father very deeply—how deeply he was very soon to realize—but he both admired and respected him. No one could make two trips over and back with Captain Troy, watching his handling of his ship, his behavior in moments of peril and his attitude toward the men under him, without feeling admiration and respect for the simple-minded, big-hearted, cool-thinking man. The fact that Nelson’s mother had died when he was eight years of age had focused all his affection on his father, and, since Nelson was an only child, had, on the other hand, concentrated all the captain’s love on him. Besides being father and son they were excellent companions, and neither was quite contented when away from the other.

The captain gazed up at the half-filled foresail. “I’m fearing it’s to be light winds all the way across,” he said. “I hate the thought of going into steam at my time of life, but there’s no denying that a couple of screws aft there would be a big help just now. If I knew where to pick up a small steamship I’m not sure I wouldn’t take her over, son, for the next voyage. It’s maddening to think of all the cargoes awaiting bottoms back home, and us wallowing along at five or six knots; and in ballast, at that!”

“Mustn’t be greedy, dad,” answered the boy, smiling up in the dark. “We made a pile of money this trip, didn’t we?”

“Money? Yes, we did pretty well,” replied the captain with satisfaction. “I’ve been blowing east and west, north and south most of my life, son, and this is nearly the first time that big money has come my way. We ain’t rich, and I’d like to see a bit more in the bank before I quit. You’ll be needing some, and so’ll I when I join the fireside fleet.”

“You needn’t worry about me, dad. I’m going to earn my own money in a year or two.”

“Maybe, but not so soon as that. You’re going to finish your education first, I’m hoping. I want you to have all the trimmings before you take the wheel. Have you thought any more about that college?”

“Not much,” owned the boy. “There have been so many other things to think about, you see.” His tone if not his words implied that the other things were far more interesting. “Anyway, there’s time enough. I’ll have to put in another year in high school, I suppose.” His voice dropped dismally at the end, and the captain chuckled.

“I guess you’re like all the Troys. There never was one of ’em I ever heard tell of that was much of a scholar. Your great-uncle Joab got to be a Judge of the Supreme Court, but I always suspicioned that he did it by keeping his mouth clamped down and not letting on to how little he really knew about the Law! That’s one trait the Troys have generally possessed, and it’s a good one.”

“What, not knowing much?” laughed the boy.

“Not saying much. There’s more men have talked themselves out of their jobs than you can shake a stick at. Just you remember that, son, and every time you’re tempted to say something when you ain’t got anything to say, you just clap the hatch on. And then,” he added, “sit on it, just as you’re doing now!” The captain craned his head a little for a look at the dim spread of the jib. “I’ll feel a sight easier,” he muttered, “when we’re five hundred miles further west.”

“You aren’t afraid of U-boats, are you, dad?” asked Nelson, smiling as he pulled at the dog’s ears.

“I’m not exactly afraid of them, no, but ‘accidents’ have happened before this, and I’m kind of fond of this little ship.”

“But, dad, we’re not at war with Germany. They wouldn’t——”

“Well, there was the William P. Frye,” replied the captain dryly. “They got her, didn’t they? And we weren’t at war with her then, neither. Any more than we were when they sank the Lusitania,” he added bitterly.

“But I’ve always thought that was—was different,” said Nelson, vaguely. “She was British, dad, and——”

“I know,” interrupted his father roughly. “She was British, but she had American citizens aboard, and Germany knew it. I’d rather you didn’t try to excuse Germany for that deed, son; I—I’m likely to lose my temper. Well, ain’t it most time you turned in? Or are you considering taking the graveyard watch to-night?”

“Oh, it isn’t really late yet,” laughed the boy. “It’s such a peachy night that I hate to go below. So does Pickles, don’t you, you old rascal?”

Apparently he did, for he wagged a stiff tail enthusiastically and burrowed his nose further into the crook of the boy’s arm.

“Well, don’t make it too late,” advised his father, turning away. “If I find you on deck at seven bells I’ll put you in the lazaret on hard tack and water for the rest of the voyage.” With which dire threat Captain Troy strode off toward the stern.

Left to themselves, boy and dog sat a few minutes longer, and then, finding that the breeze was seeking them out, arose. Nelson yawned deeply and Pickles wagged his tail, as they went sleepily aft to the companion. As Nelson’s head dropped below the deck level he caught an uncertain glimpse of his father’s form by the helmsman and a glowing speck that showed that Leo’s pipe was drawing well. Nelson shared his father’s cabin, and twenty minutes later he was sound asleep there, while Pickles, half under the bunk and half out, twitched his legs and made little sounds, dreaming, perhaps, that he was doing battle royal with some long-whiskered, squeaking denizen of the hold.

Seven bells had struck some time ago, when Nelson was midway between sleeping and waking, and now it was close on midnight. From across the passage came the deep snores of Mr. Cupples. The mate was a vigorous, hearty man even when he slumbered. In the dimly lighted captain’s cabin Pickles, having vanquished his adversary, sighed and stretched his long legs into new positions, without waking, and the boy above, dreaming, too, doubtless, muttered faintly in his sleep. And then——

And then he awoke to chaos!

The first disturbing sound had been a dull, crackling thud from somewhere forward, and the schooner had reeled and shivered with the shock as though she had driven head-on to a reef. The second sound had followed so close on the heels of the first that it had been virtually but a continuation of it. Nelson was never certain that he had heard the first sound at all, for he came fully awake with his ears fairly splitting with the awful concussion that shook the ship. The noise was beyond imagination, and yet so peculiar that he knew instinctively what it meant.

An explosion!

Confused, frightened, too, if the truth must be told, he struggled from his berth. The light was out. Somewhere in the darkness Pickles was whimpering. On deck were shouts and the rushing of heavy feet. The cabin floor slanted amazingly and Nelson, groping for the passage, found the door swung wide and had to pull himself through the aperture with a hand on each side of the frame. He remembered the dog then and called. But his heart was beating too loudly for him to know whether Pickles followed as, clinging to whatever his groping hands encountered, he made his way to the companion. As he set foot on the lowest step another rending shock shook the Jonas Clinton, and there was the sound of splintering wood and the crash of yards and tackle to the deck above.

He knew then. His father’s half-felt fear had not been unwarranted, it seemed. Nelson’s fright gave way to a swift flood of anger, and as he hastened on deck, he trembled with the tempest of his wrath.

Even in the moonlit darkness the little schooner presented a pitiable sight. She was already far down at the head. Her foremast was broken short off and the great foresail shrouded the deck and dragged over the side. The first shell from the unseen enemy had entered the hull aft the galley and just above the water-line and the succeeding explosion had opened the seams wide and piled the fore part of the ship with destruction. The second shot had gone high and taken the foremast ten feet from deck. As he looked, spellbound at the head of the companion, the schooner’s bowsprit disappeared under the surface and the stern, with its idly swinging, deserted wheel, rose higher against the purple-black sky. Amidship on the starboard side there was confused shouting and the squeak of tackle where a boat was being lowered. Nelson hurried toward it just as with a whine, a third shell passed the stern.

There were but four men at the boat. One was Mr. Cupples, the mate, and one was Leo. The other two were sailors whom the boy didn’t identify until later. He caught Mr. Cupples’ arm.

“Where’s dad?” he cried anxiously.

“Lower away! What? Is that you, Nelson? Are you hurt?”

“No, sir. Where’s father, sir?”

“In with you, quick, lad! There’ll be another shell on us in a minute.”

“But I want to know where dad is! I don’t see him!”

“He’s coming,” said Mr. Cupples gruffly. “Skippers stand by to the last, lad. Over you go now.”

“Well——!” And then Nelson remembered Pickles. He called him but got no answering bark nor sound of scampering feet. Pickles, then, was still below! He turned, deaf to the cries of the mate and the others, and hurried up the canted deck and plunged again into the after cabin.

“Pickles!” he called. “Pickles! Where are you?” And then he heard a whine, and went stumbling, falling into the little compartment where the floor was already an inch deep in sea water. For a moment he couldn’t find the dog, but then another whine led him right and he gathered the frightened animal in his arms and hastened out again, sobbing reassurances and endearments, and all the time panic-stricken with a terror he couldn’t formulate, but that had to do with the amazing fact that his father had not come for him. On deck again, he sped to the side. The little boat was in the water and as his head showed over the rail Mr. Cupples called to him to jump.

“Catch Pickles,” he answered, and dropped the dog. “Is father down there? Are you there, dad?”

But it was Leo who answered. “Sure, he ban here in boat. Yump, Nels!”

Nelson jumped—the distance now was but a few feet—and landed safely between thwarts. [Oars dashed at the water and the boat headed away.] Nelson, recovering himself, peered about. It seemed lighter here than on the schooner’s deck, and it took him but an instant to learn the truth. He leaped to his feet again despairingly.

[Oars dashed at the water and the boat headed away.]

“He isn’t here! You lied to me! Where is he?” he cried.

An arm pulled him back to the seat and Mr. Cupples’ voice came to him from the dimness, broken and husky.

“We couldn’t find him, Nelson. He must have been forward when the first shot hit us. I think he was—I’m afraid——” The mate’s voice trailed off into silence. A fourth shot struck the schooner. They could see the brief scarlet glare of the bursting shell and hear the havoc caused by the flying shrapnel. But Nelson neither saw nor heard. He was staring dumbly, agonizedly into the night, while Pickles, clasped close in his arms, whimpered his sympathy.

CHAPTER II
WITH THE COAST PATROL

The U. S. S. Wanderer plunged her nose into the blue-green waters of Nantucket Sound, tossed them high in glittering spray that rattled against the slanting glass of the little wheel-house—only they liked to call it the bridge on the Wanderer—and raced on at a good twenty knots, leaving a fine hillock of sea under her low taffrail and a long snow-white wake behind. It was a brisk, sunshiny morning in late April. A blue sky that held a half-cargo of cottony clouds grayed into mist at the horizon. A few points off the starboard bow Handkerchief Light Ship swayed her stumpy poles and marked the southern limit of the four mile shoal. Beyond, the sandy shore of Cape Cod glistened in the sunlight, and to port Nantucket Island came abreast.

The Wanderer was but ninety-six feet over all and was built with the slender proportions of a cigar. Barely more than a month ago she had been a private cruising yacht, but a fortnight in a Boston basin had changed her appearance greatly. Now she was the color of tarnished pewter from stem to stern, from keel to tip of signal pole. Her deck was bare save for a rapid fire gun at the bow and a three-pounder aft and a gray tender swung inboard amidships. Below, however, something of her former magnificence remained in the form of mahogany and egg-shell white and gold lines, but curtains and soft cushions and similar luxuries had been sternly abolished. She carried a personnel of fourteen, Naval Reserves all, for the Wanderer was listed as Number 167 of the Coast Patrol. Of the fourteen, two were commissioned officers, Lieutenant Hattuck and Ensign Stowell, five were petty officers and the rest were seamen, if we except that worthy and popular personage “Spuds,” whose real name was Flynn and whose rating was that of ship’s cook of the fourth class.

The commander was an ex-Navy man, his junior a yachtsman of experience. The chief machinist had come from a Great Lakes freighter and his mate had run a ferry in Portland Harbor. Some of the others were ex-service men, but the electrician was just out of the Radio School and three of the seamen had been swinging their hammocks in the barracks at Newport a month ago. Of the latter trio, one was a well set-up youth of barely eighteen, with a pair of very blue eyes and a good-looking face set in rather serious lines. There was something about the lad that impressed one with a sense of ability and determination; or perhaps it was a number of things, such as the firm molding of his chin, the straight set of his mouth, the back-throw of his broad shoulders or the quiet, direct way of speaking. In the ten days that the Wanderer had been on duty most of its occupants had come into nicknames, or had brought them with them, and this boy was known as “Chatty.” It was Cochran, GM2C, who had labeled him the first night at sea when, clustered in the tiny forward cabin that served as forecastle, those off watch had proceeded to get acquainted. The boy, a second class seaman, had had so little to say that the gunner’s mate had finally turned on him with a sarcastic: “Say, Jack, you’re a chatty guy, aren’t you? Come across with a few words, just to show there’s no hard feeling!” For the rest of the evening Cochran had addressed him as “Chatty” and the nickname had stuck. Now, aside from the officers, it is doubtful if anyone aboard knew the boy’s real name.

That one at least of the officers did was proved presently when Ensign Stowell turned from listening to Cochran’s lecture on the mechanism of the bow gun delivered to “Spuds,” Hanson, radio man, and Jaynes, chief machinist, and stopped in the lee of the deck-house where “Chatty” was leaning against the life-buoy that hung there and gazing thoughtfully across the sun-flecked water to the distant green expanse of Nantucket.

“Well, Troy,” said the Ensign, “seen any periscopes yet?”

Sighting a periscope was an over-used joke in the patrol service those days, but it usually brought a smile, just as it did now.

“Not yet, sir. I’d like to.”

The officer laughed. “By Jove, so would I! But I guess you and I’ll have to cross the briny before we have any such luck as that. You came from the Newport Station, didn’t you? What do they say there about getting across? The Reserves, I mean.”

“A good many have gone, sir. There was a detail of seventy left the day I did. They were to go to Halifax and board a transport for the other side. Nothing was known beyond that, but the general idea was that they were to be sprinkled around the destroyers over there.”

The officer sighed. “I’ve done my best to make it, but this is what I drew. Oh, well, something may happen even here. You know the Smith’s men stick to it that they dodged a torpedo off the Maine coast the other day.”

The boy smiled again, and the Ensign, watching, chuckled. “Just my idea,” he agreed, although the other hadn’t spoken. “Still, it would be something to even think you saw a ‘fish,’ eh? There’d be a dime’s worth of excitement in that! How did you happen to go into the Reserves, Troy?”

“I wanted to get into action, sir, and the folks I talked with thought I’d get there quicker if I enlisted in the Reserves than in the Navy. I’m not so sure now, though. Maybe I made a mistake.” The Wanderer called gruffly twice to a tug ahead and the tug unhurriedly replied. Ensign Stowell spoke to the man at the wheel, through the open door of the house, and turned back again.

“Blessed if I can tell you,” he answered. “Looks to me, though, as if they were going to need every man they can get before this shindy is over. Well I hope they’ll shove me over before long! I didn’t count on serving in a two-by-twice motor boat. Have you been to sea much?”

“I made two trips on a sailing vessel, sir, with my father. The last time was in the Fall. The Germans got her.”

“Got her! You mean sank her? Where was this? What ship was she?”

“The Jonas Clinton, sir. We were shelled about five hundred miles from the coast on the voyage back.”

“The Clinton! Of course, I remember that! So you were the captain’s son that was picked up by a British destroyer, eh? I remember reading about it. That was in November, wasn’t it?”

“October, sir: the sixteenth when we were picked up. They got the schooner about midnight of the fourteenth.”

“Yes, yes, they found four of you in a small boat——”

“Five, sir, and a dog.”

“Was it five? I remember about the dog. The papers made a sort of hero of you, didn’t they? Had you risking your life to get the dog off, or something.”

“The papers,” replied Nelson Troy gravely, “printed a good deal that wasn’t so. I couldn’t very well leave Pickles behind, you see. And I guess there wasn’t much danger.”

“But, I say, Troy, your father!” The ensign’s voiced dropped sympathetically. “He was lost, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sorry I rattled on so about it! I’d forgotten that. By Jove, I don’t blame you for wanting to get a whack at those murderers! You had a hard time, boy. Was your father killed outright?”

Nelson’s eyes closed slightly and two vertical creases appeared above his straight nose. “I don’t think so, sir. You see, they couldn’t find him. Mr. Cupples, the mate, thought he might have been forward when the first shell struck and been knocked overboard. And I suppose that’s the way it was, but dad was a good swimmer, and unless he was wounded first I don’t see why we didn’t find him. That shell cleaned out the forecastle and killed five of the crew, but it couldn’t have hit anyone on deck, as I figure it. Dad might have been standing square over where the shell burst, perhaps. It’s a sort of a mystery, sir, and I don’t know what to think, only—somehow—I can’t make up my mind that he’s dead.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the other thoughtfully. “It’s just as well to keep on hoping. He may turn up some day. Still, there’s this to consider, Troy. If he was knocked into the sea and was picked up you would have heard from him long before this.”

“Unless he was picked up by the U-boat that attacked us,” answered the boy quietly.

“By the U-boat? Why, yes, that’s possible, of course. Do you know whether she searched the schooner before she sank her?”

“We couldn’t be sure, sir. She didn’t show any lights, of course, but it was sort of half moonlight, and after we’d rowed off about two miles we thought we saw something approach the schooner. We didn’t stay around long, because we were afraid they would see us and start shelling.”

“I see. But you stood by the ship long enough to have rescued your father if he had been afloat, eh?”

“Yes, sir, we rowed around for about fifteen minutes. Then the shells were getting pretty thick and the sailors wouldn’t stay any longer so we rowed out of range. That’s what I don’t understand. If dad wasn’t on board, and Mr. Cupples says they searched all over for him, he must have been in the water. But we couldn’t find him there, and——” The boy’s voice trailed into silence.

The ensign laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “He might have been there, just the same,” he said hopefully. “Stranger things have happened. I don’t suppose he was wearing a life-belt.”

“No, sir, none of us were. We didn’t really expect any trouble, although dad had his mind on it that night. I remember his saying he’d be easier when we were out of the submarine zone. But I no more expected what happened than—than nothing at all!”

“Of course you didn’t! Who would? Oh, wait till we get a shot at them! We’ve got a lot of scores to pay off, Troy, and, by the Great Horned Spoon, we’ll do it! Now I understand why you’re so eager for service, Troy, and I hope you’ll soon get across where things are happening. I know that we’re taught that revenge is sinful, but——”

The ensign shook his head.

“I don’t think it is exactly revenge I want,” replied Nelson thoughtfully. “Killing a thousand Germans wouldn’t bring dad back, if he’s really—gone, but things like that aren’t right, sir, and I’d like to do my share in stopping them. No nation should be allowed to act like a pirate, to attack neutral ships on the high seas and murder defenseless men. But of course you can’t teach nations of that sort by just talking to them; you’ve got to hurt them first. That, as I figure it, is why we’ve gone into this war, sir. Anyway, I guess it’s why I’ve gone into it.”

“Right! ‘For the Freedom of the Seas!’ That’s our motto, and before we’re done we’ll write it big over every ocean, Troy. And across the sky we’ll write ‘Humanity!’” The ensign ceased abruptly, smiled as though at his own earnestness, and nodded. “Good luck, Troy. You’ve got the right idea, son.”

He passed aft and disappeared down the companion that led to the officers’ quarters, leaving Nelson again to his thoughts. But after a moment he shook them off, left the lee of the bridge and went forward. Cross Rip Light Ship was nearly abeam now and Martha’s Vineyard was coming fast across the flashing water. Staples, seaman gunner, was lavishing good vaseline on the bow gun and singing a song as he worked. He broke off at Nelson’s approach and nodded gayly.

“Think I’ll ever have a chance to point this little toy, Chatty?” he asked. “Say, wouldn’t it surprise those chaps on the light ship to drop a shell alongside? I’d like to do it just to see ’em jump! What’s on the luff’s mind today, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” replied Nelson. “We’re making for New Bedford, though. There was a lot of sizzling in the radio room an hour ago.”

“Maybe someone saw a porpoise,” hazarded Staples. “And this is what I left a happy home for! Well, it’s a fine, free life, with nothing to do but work. There, if anyone finds any rust on that gun it won’t be my fault. Isn’t it most time for grub?”

“Pretty near, but I guess they’ll wait till we’re at anchor.”

“Great Scott! What’s the big idea? Don’t they know I’m hungrier than a shark? Anchored be blowed! Why, that’ll be the middle of the afternoon!”

“Not at this rate, Lanky. We’re doing twenty and New Bedford’s only about thirty-five miles.”

“Yeah, and it’s seven bells now,” replied Staples disconsolately. “Some folks haven’t any heart at all. I’m so near starved I could eat that grease!”

“I guess that would fetch about five dollars in Germany,” said Nelson, “if what we hear is so. They’d probably butter their bread with it.”

“It’s a sight better spread than they deserve,” grunted the gunner. “Axle grease is what those criminals ought to have. Help me with this jacket, will you?”

Nelson lent a hand and the canvas covering was drawn back over the gun and laced tight. Staples wiped his hands thoughtfully on a bunch of waste. “Know what I’d rather have happen than a plate of beans and a quart of coffee, Chatty?” he asked, gazing westward over the plunging bow. Nelson didn’t and said so. “Well, I’d rather see a U-boat come up right over where that gull’s dipping. That’s my rather.”

“You’re likely to see it,” laughed Nelson.

“Why shouldn’t I?” demanded the other. “What’s the use of us fellers kiting around here if there’s never going to be any fun? Mark my words, Chatty, some day you’re going to be surprised. Government isn’t paying us wages to give us sea trips. Not by a long shot! We’re here because we’re needed here. It’s Lanky Staples that’s telling you!”

CHAPTER III
THE LONELY REEF

The Wanderer slid into New Bedford shortly after one o’clock, fluttered a greeting to the torpedo boat Hollis, lying off Fort Point, and dropped anchor in the inner harbor. There was liberty when dinner was over, and Nelson and a half-dozen others spent the afternoon exploring the streets of the old whaling town. The Wanderer replenished fuel tanks and stole out again shortly after dusk, just as the lights were appearing along shore. A group of Jackies on the after deck of the Hollis cheered and shouted raillery as the little patrol sped past so close one could have counted the chevrons of their rating badges. Billy Masters, apprentice seaman, stopped by the forecastle break, where Nelson was on lookout duty, and jerked his head in the direction of the receding torpedo boat.

“I suppose those fellows think a lot of themselves because they’re on a regular boat, eh? Bet you anything you like, Chatty, we have a lot more fun than they do.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” answered Nelson. “What’s that thing bucking along there? Looks like a mine-layer, doesn’t she?”

“Yes. What do you suppose she was before they patched her up and painted her gray? Looks like a little old tub that used to run excursions on the river when I was a kid back home.”

“Where was that, Billy?”

“Portsmouth, Ohio. Ever there?” Nelson shook his head while his gaze followed the little blunt-nosed, high-decked steamer that came wallowing toward them from the open sea. Billy Masters sighed. “It’s a swell little burg, and I wish I was back there,” he murmured. Then, as the Wanderer’s search light, atop the wheel-house, jumped into life and sent a long inquiring path across the darkening water, he added more cheerfully: “If I was, though, I’d want to be back here again, so what’s the use?”

The approaching craft bellowed once hoarsely and the Wanderer replied. “Sounds like she had a sore throat,” muttered Billy. “Say, what’s up tonight?”

“Why?”

“Oh, the skipper’s sort of excited like and so’s the other. And Spuds says the Hollis’s captain was aboard this afternoon and he and our skipper and the junior were chinning for about an hour down there. And Ole’s wearing a sort of wise look on his ugly Swedish mug like he knew a lot more’n he wanted to say. Let me tell you something. I don’t believe Ole can hear a blamed thing on that wireless of his. He just puts that black thing around his head and frowns and writes on pieces of paper. Then he takes ’em in to the skipper and the skipper, being in the plot, nods his old head and opens a little book and makes believe to decode the silly stuff. Why, it stands to reason that an aerial no bigger’n a back-yard clothes line can’t pick up much!”

Nelson laughed. “You tell that to Ole. He’ll drop you overboard.”

“Huh, I ain’t afraid of any tow-headed galoot like him, even if he did go to school for three months and has doodaddies on his sleeve. I could have been a radio man if I’d wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Nelson.

“’Cause when there’s something doing I want to be in it. No sitting around on a stool for mine, getting my head knocked off and jabbing out, ‘Shell has just entered radio room, killing operator. Good bye!’ That may be heroic and get your picture in the paper, but it don’t get you much else!”

The Wanderer left Dumpling Rock Light on her starboard and swung her bow more to the west. By nine o’clock, down in the “forecastle,” they were predicting a visit to New York or Brooklyn, and Perry, first-class shipfitter, was licking his lips in anticipation.

“I’ve got friends down there,” he said, half closing his eyes and swaying ecstatically back and forth on the edge of a bunk in time to the rocking of the boat. “They’ll ask me to dinner. There’ll be chicken, like as not, and lots of pie. Maybe two or three kinds of pie.” He looked around to see how the announcement affected the others and was disappointed. “Maybe lemon pie with suds atop,” he added desperately.

Lanky Staples grunted. “You can have all the pie you want,” he said. “Me for a real feed on Broadway. I know the place, too. A stack of wheats as high as that——” He held his hands some fourteen inches apart—“and about a pint of maple syrup, and two or three cups of real coffee, not the stuff Spuds gives us——”

“Yeah, I know the place, too,” interrupted the cook sarcastically. “You get a couple of flies in the syrup an’ they don’t charge you a cent for ’em! You wouldn’t know good coffee from a cup of bilge water, you long-legged giraffe!”

“Think we’ll get liberty?” asked Endicott longingly. “I got folks out to Flatbush.”

“We won’t get that much liberty,” replied Lanky, gently. “Maybe we’ll get a day. Why don’t you telegraph your folks to come half-way and meet you?”

Their dreams of the gayety of New York were doomed, however, to a sad awakening. When the morning watch went on at four the Wanderer was swinging at anchor in a choppy sea with nothing in sight in the gray darkness but a stretch of ghostly breakers a half-mile to the west. As the light grew a beach became visible beyond the surf and, finally, a low island stretched before them. Nelson, coming on deck at eight, viewed it curiously. It appeared to be about a half-mile long and, he guessed, scarcely more than a quarter of that in width. At no place did it rise more than ten feet above the ocean. In the gray, cold light of a cloudy day it was about as desolate and lonely a spot as one could imagine. Not even a hut broke the monotony of the sky-line, but at the farther end a cluster of low, wind-tossed, misshapen trees made a darker blot on the expanse of sand and beach grass. There were low bushes here and there; bayberry, probably, and sweet-gale; and in one place, not far from the Wanderer’s unquiet anchorage, a ledge cropped a few feet above the sand. Gulls fluttered over the island, but they constituted the only signs of life.

“What do you make of it, Chatty?” asked Cochran, gunner’s mate, ranging alongside. Nelson shook his head. “Doesn’t look as if we’d come all this way to picnic on the beach, does it?” He looked around in all directions. “Where are we? That’s what I’d like to know. We’ve been pretty well over these waters for a week or so, but I’ll swear to goodness I never saw that cheerful looking reef before.”

“Nor I,” said Nelson. “It must be one of the Elizabeths, don’t you think?”

“No, I know the whole bunch: Nonamesset, Uncatena, Naushon, Pasque and Nashawena, Cuttyhunk and Penikese. Sounds like something out of Longfellow, don’t it? ‘Hiawatha,’ maybe. No, we’re further from New Bedford than any of those. We didn’t drop anchor until about four bells, and we were doing fourteen most of the time. There’s some sand banks like that—” he nodded at the desolate expanse before them—“south of the Vineyard, I’ve heard. They get down on the charts as reefs and then the sea kicks a lot of sand over them and they’re islands. And maybe ten years after that they’re just rocks again. A couple of good gales tears them all to pieces. This one looks as if it had been here quite a spell, though.” Cochran broke the wrapper of a package of chewing gum, proffered it to Nelson and stowed a piece between his teeth. “Anyway,” he went on when he had got the gum working nicely, “you can be sure of one thing, Chatty. We didn’t come down here and slop around half the night in this nasty chop without some reason. Maybe that island’s one of these German submarine bases you read about.”

Nelson smiled. “They might have chosen a more cheerful one, I’d say. We’ll find out pretty quick, I guess, for there’s the Old Man now.”

But the solution of the mystery was not due to be solved just yet. Lieutenant Hattuck, very erect and smart in his uniform, walked forward to the bridge. Then he and the junior made their way to the bow and, standing by the gray-jacketed gun, examined the shore through their glasses and talked together for several minutes. Green, Ole Hanson’s relief, climbed out of the wireless room and approached them with a fluttering wisp of paper in his hand. Action followed closely after the captain had cast his eye over the message and handed it to the ensign. Up came the anchor and the Wanderer crept slowly along the shore, the ensign himself at the wheel, and Quartermaster’s Mate Jones keeping an anxious watch at the bow. When nearly opposite the easternmost end of the island, which curved slightly to the south, the small boat was ordered lowered and Mr. Stowell, yielding the wheel, gave his orders.

“Jones, pick four men for a landing party. Arm with automatics.”

“Yes, sir. Do I go along?”

“Certainly. Hustle now.”

“Right, sir! Staples, Troy, Endicott and Masters! Get a jump on! Don’t forget your cartridge belts!”

Four minutes later they were in the little boat, her tiny engine sending her bobbing crazily over the gray-green water. Ensign Stowell was in the stern sheets and Jones brooded over the engine. They beached near the little forest of twisted trees, leaped into the shallow surf and carried the anchor ashore.

“Draw your bean-shooters,” directed the officer, “but keep the safety on. Come ahead, keep down pretty well and don’t talk.”

It was the matter of eighty or a hundred yards to where the straggling trees began. They climbed quietly up the sloping beach, the ensign leading, and paused where the high tides of winter had left a ridge of sand, loosely clad with grass and wild pea. Before them there lay the wind-rippled surface of the island, flat and unbroken save for the patch of trees, and beyond, the sea again. Nelson thought he could discern what looked like land where the horizon lay, but could not be certain. What he was certain of was a tiny dark speck that bobbed about some two miles away to the north and could be nothing else than a boat. Mr. Stowell gave a grunt and pulled his glasses from their case and leveled them. After a long moment he returned them, faced the Wanderer, circling slowly about off the beach, and waved an arm semaphore fashion. The captain, watching from the deck, waved an answer. A minute later, with her engines humming, she was standing straight out to sea.

The officer led the way again, bearing to the right until they were well hidden from the approaching boat by the trees. Then they went forward and gained the edge of the tiny forest and, following the example set by the ensign, threw themselves down on the sand amidst the crackling branches of bayberry bushes to which a few sere leaves and odorous gray berries still clung. The dwarfed trees ahead were pitch pine, although here and there a leafless wild cherry was struggling for existence. Ensign Stowell conversed in low tones with the quartermaster’s mate and alternately peered through a vista in the grove at the coming boat and cast roving glances about the trees, much, thought Nelson, as though he were looking for birds’ nests!

“What’s the game, Chatty?” muttered Endicott, pulling himself nearer. “German spies?”

“Don’t know. Tell you later.”

“Much obliged. I say, look where the Wanderer is!”

Nelson looked. The patrol boat was a good three miles south and was now running eastward at half-speed, presenting a fine imitation of a person minding his own business. Evidently, concluded Nelson, the plan was to keep out of sight until the persons in the small motor boat—for that was what the craft now showed itself to be—had landed. Then, doubtless, the Wanderer would turn back. But he was still puzzled, for the patrol boat could, naturally, run rings about the smaller one or, if it pleased her, blow her clean out of the water. There was, then, evidently more to the operation than just capture.

The approaching motor boat was making slow work of it, and hard, for the sea was decidedly rough today for such small craft; but she came pluckily on, bobbing about like a cork and, doubtless, shipping water with every toss. They could see her occupants now, three men at least, and possibly four. The smoke from the exhaust left a trail of lighter gray against the gray of sea and sky. Masters was examining his automatic with a nonchalance that didn’t deceive anyone.

The motor boat made straight for the beach on the north side of the island, which today was also the lee side. Nelson could see her no longer now, but he heard Ensign Stowell say softly to Jones: “Four of them. They’re all there, then.”

Even when the boat had grounded and her crew had sprung up to their knees in water and waded ashore with the painter they were too far off for their features to be distinguished. Nelson squirmed a bit to the right and found a place from which he could watch. The quartette pushed an anchor into the sand well above the tide, and Nelson saw that a second one had been dropped from her stern. The boat was surprisingly tiny for such a sea and he was forced to credit the unknown crew with a good deal of courage. They were coming up the rise of the further beach now, one carrying a square wooden box that looked heavy as it bumped against his leg at each stride. They walked in single file, the man with the box bringing up the rear. The leader was not tall, but there was something authoritative in the way he carried his squarely-built figure. In spite of the black rain-coat which shrouded him he looked military. The others, similarly protected from the weather and the sea, were distinctly civilian.

Just as they left the beach and gained the higher level of the island the leader stopped abruptly and pointed to the eastward. Nelson, following the direction of his hand, descried the Wanderer, running northward now, almost an indistinguishable gray object against the sea. After a minute the four men came on, walking a little more hurriedly, and entered the wood on the further side. For a moment or two they were visible between the trees, and then they disappeared as suddenly as though the earth had swallowed them!

Jones turned and looked inquiringly at Ensign Stowell, but the latter shook his head.

“Wait,” he said softly.

CHAPTER IV
A BATTLE UNDERGROUND

Five minutes passed; ten. The Wanderer was out of sight now beyond the trees. Ensign Stowell beckoned and his little command drew closer.

“We want those chaps,” he said in low tones. “They’ve got a hiding place of some sort over there; probably a hut. There are six of us. Have you all got watches?”

Everyone nodded.

“Good. I’ll go around to the further side, Jones will take the next post on the west, then Endicott. You stay here, Masters. Staples you will cut around to the east and Troy will go half-way. Five minutes by your watches from the time I start off you will all close in. Don’t fire a shot until I give the word unless you are fired on. Then shoot to stop your man but not kill him. Make as little noise as you can, watch for your friends and don’t mistake them for the men we’re after. Get it, all of you? All right. Look at your watches.”

The ensign rose and started eastward around the edge of the straggling grove. Jones followed, and Staples. After a minute or so Endicott and Nelson quietly went their separate ways, leaving a somewhat anxious looking youth behind in the shape of Billy Masters. Nelson kept to the sand so that his feet would tread on no crackling twigs, and, when he had traversed what he believed to be the proper distance, knelt and looked at the watch on the leather strap about his wrist. He had still two and a half minutes to wait. From his place he could see the Wanderer again. She was swinging westward now, perhaps two miles away, but one who didn’t know would never have suspected her of interest in this forlorn stretch of reef and sand. Nelson thought he could make out a moving figure on her forecastle deck and wondered if it was Cochran impatiently awaiting a chance to ram a cartridge into that bow gun. Save for the roar of the waves and the plaintive cries of the gulls everything was still. The seconds ticked themselves slowly away. A minute more now to wait. A half minute—fifteen seconds—ten—five——

He arose, revolver in hand, and stepped forward into the gloom of the pines. In spite of his care a twig snapped occasionally under his feet as, dodging queer, misshapen branches, he went on toward the center of the wood. The sand was soft and mixed with pine needles and clothed here and there with sad-looking vines already showing new leaves. The trees were more scattered than he had thought, and were twisted strangely by the force of the gales. After a minute he caught sight of something moving ahead of him and, with a leap of his heart, swung his automatic up. But it was Endicott. A second rustling brought Masters to view. Converging, they kept on. One by one the other members of the landing party drew near, Staples last of all. The ensign was clearly nonplused. He looked enquiringly from face to face. Each man shook his head. They stood in silence for a minute. The sound of the surf was strangely hushed here in the center of the little wood. Nelson could hear his watch tick. The ensign was looking toward the tops of the small trees, pivoting slowly on his heel. Jones was doing the same. Nelson, suspecting an airplane, looked, too, but saw nothing except the gray sky through the loose branches. The ensign raised a hand warningly and stepped a dozen paces to the eastward and repeated his queer survey, and then to the north. The others watched and waited in silence.

Suddenly they saw the ensign’s roving gaze fix itself steadily on some point almost above his head. They craned their necks, but saw nothing. The ensign’s head moved again and finally he walked away from them, step by step, still gazing upward. Nelson, for one, was fairly consumed by curiosity and would have remained so several moments longer had not his wandering gaze surprised Lanky Staples in the act of forming the word “wireless” with his lips. Then Nelson understood and peered eagerly into the topmost branches and, after an instant, saw what the officer had seen. Once detected the apparatus was startlingly evident. Twenty paces away from where Nelson stood, a twenty-foot sapling had been lashed to one of the taller trees. Some forty feet away another sapling, not quite so long, had been secured. Between them, invisible to a careless gaze, stretched two fine copper wires, perhaps two feet apart. From above they might have been detected, but from any point seaward they were invisible.

The ensign was stepping softly back toward the little group, a quiet smile on his lean face. “We’ve got them,” he whispered. He bent a thumb over a shoulder. “They’ve dug a hole back there. See that darkest pine, the one with the branches low to the ground? There’s a trap-door there. You stay here until I beckon. I want to make sure that it’s unlocked. When I beckon, come quietly, but keep out of range, for they may start popping.”

The ensign crept slowly off toward the indicated spot and presently they saw him stoop. A second later he straightened again and beckoned.

“Come on,” said Jones softly.

They joined the ensign. Half hidden by the drooping branches of the tree, and raised a bare inch above the sandy floor of the forest, was a square of wood, some eighteen inches across, of matched boards painted gray and sprinkled with sand while still wet. The ensign pointed to a barely defined path that led toward the northern beach and looked accusingly at Jones, and Jones, observing, shook his head sadly and stuck out a dubious lower lip. But there was no opportunity for excuses, had he had any to offer, for the ensign noiselessly raised the trap, revealing a ladder which, at first startled glance, seemed to lead far into the bowels of the earth. At the foot of it was a glow of light. As their eyes grew accustomed to the gloom of the narrow shaft, revetted carefully with planking, they saw that the bottom was after all but a dozen or fourteen feet below them. And, as they looked they heard plainly the crackling of a wireless and the low sound of voices.

Ensign Stowell studied the situation a moment and then he leaned toward Jones and they spoke together softly. Jones passed on the orders. “Lanky, you come next. Then Chatty, then you, Endy. You stay up here, Billy, and watch. If any of them come up the ladder, drop ’em. All right, sir!”

The ensign slipped back the safety catch of his automatic and noiselessly lowered himself into the aperture. Jones, revolver ready, watched anxiously. Rung by rung the ensign descended. When his head had disappeared Jones followed. Those above, listening with painful intentness, heard scarcely a sound from the shaft. Staples scowled impatiently. Then he, too, set foot on the ladder, and at that instant they heard the ensign drop the last six feet and heard his voice cry:

“[Hands up!]”

Jones was gone now, Staples was descending rapidly and Nelson was following. The gray daylight disappeared as the latter feverishly searched for the rungs with impatient feet. From below came a dim yellow radiance. He heard the sharp report of a revolver, voices, the thud of Staples’ body as he spurned the last rungs of the ladder. He looked down. Jones was flattened against the wall, but he cried a warning and dropped.

He landed on his feet, collided with Jones and sprawled sideways. Another shot rang out and he was conscious of a blow on his arm under the shoulder and of Jones leaping across him. Then he struggled to his feet. Smoke wreathed and eddied in the dim light of a single lamp that hung from a nail in one corner, and made a haze through which he saw dimly. One of the enemy lay prone on the earth floor with blood trickling from his head. A second, a smoking pistol still in his grasp, stood with his hands above him. A third, surprised at the instrument, the receiver still in place was slewed half-way around on the box that served for chair and with drooping jaw and frightened eyes raised his hands, too, in token of surrender while his furtive glances swept the room for an avenue of escape. But the fourth and last member of the quartet was still unsubdued. It was he who had fired the last shot, and, although his revolver now lay on the ground under trampling feet, he fought fiercely, desperately in the clutch of Jones, uttering all the while the guttural, savage growls of an animal. Back and forth they swayed, lurched against the man on the box, who cringed away from them, stumbled back to the center of the floor again. The ensign and Staples, their revolvers covering the others, watched the struggle for an instant. Then, just as Endicott joined them, Jones thrust a leg behind his adversary and sent him sprawling heavily. He was on him in the instant, astride his chest, pinioning his arms to the floor and the encounter was over. “Take that man’s revolver, Troy,” directed the ensign.

Nelson stepped across the prostrate enemy on the floor and approached the man who was standing. As he did so he tried to return his own weapon to its holster but found to his surprise and dismay that he could not raise it from where it hung at his side. So he used his left hand instead and took the revolver from the upstretched hand of the captive.

“Search him,” said the ensign, and Nelson, giving the revolver to Endicott, went over him without finding any other weapon.

“Stand over there against the wall,” commanded the officer, “and keep your hands well up. Now, you on the box, stand up.”

The wireless operator had difficulty in obeying because his legs were not inclined to hold him, but Endicott helped him, more forcibly than politely, and he too was searched, without result, and sent to join his companion. By that time Jones’ adversary was quiet and he was allowed to get up.

“Back to the wall there, please,” said the ensign. “Jones, you and Staples watch those men. If they lower their hands an inch, shoot.” He stooped over the man who lay unconscious from a blow with the butt of a revolver and examined the wound. “He will come around in a few minutes,” he said. “See any water here, Troy?”

“No, sir.”

“He will have to wait then. Now let’s see what’s here.”

He went to the bench on which were the wireless instruments and papers and gave his attention to the latter. Nelson, conscious of a dull pain in his right arm, returned his revolver to the holster with his left hand and then looked curiously around him.

The subterranean apartment was much larger than he had expected to see, being fully five paces long by four wide. The walls and floor were of hard-packed sand, the roof of heavy timbers supported by posts of unpeeled cedar set at intervals along the walls. Although the floor must have been a full two feet below the ocean level it was scarcely more than moist. Three narrow two-inch boards ran from wall to wall at the end of the chamber opposite the ladder and served to hold the instruments of the wireless outfit: battery, jars, coils, detector, spark gap, condenser, switches and key. The discarded receiver swung over the edge from its cords. As was discovered later, the wires to the aerial were led along the roof and up a corner of the shaft. At the right of the bench a green tin lamp was supported by a nail driven in a post. There was no furniture except the empty box that had done duty as a chair. Some nails in the supporting posts held the coats and hats of the four conspirators. A box of safety matches had been spilled and its contents lay scattered on the ground.

Nelson had no difficulty in picking out the leader of the four, the one whose bearing at a distance had stamped him as military. It was he who had fought so desperately with Jones and who now, somewhat the worse for the encounter, stood straight against the wall, hands upheld and a sneering and haughty smile on his good-looking face. As Nelson observed him he spoke to the ensign.

“What you find there will be of no use to you,” he said. “If you seek to prove us guilty of anything unlawful, sir, you are doomed to disappointment.” He spoke in very precise English which might well have deceived his hearer until the latter had viewed the typically German countenance with its rather small gray eyes under heavy brows, its somewhat aquiline nose, high cheeks, carefully waxed mustaches and general expression of arrogance.

“We will let others decide that,” replied the ensign coldly. He bundled the few papers and a small black leatherette-covered book together and placed them with care in the inner pocket of his jacket. Then: “Place these instruments, as many as you can, back in this box, Troy,” he directed. “Hello, what’s the matter with your arm?”

“I think a bullet got me, sir.”

“Let me see. I should say so! Get his sleeve out of the way, Endicott. Better cut it. That’s it.” He made a tourniquet above the wound from which the blood was running freely. “You go on up, lad. Call Masters down to help you.” He turned then to the prisoners. “You will march to the ladder, one at a time, and wait outside. There is no use trying to escape, for a patrol boat is lying off the beach. Besides, you will be shot instantly the moment you make a break. Lieutenant Haegel, you first, please.”

The man started at the sound of his name and two white disks appeared at his cheek-bones. But he bowed, smiled ironically and asked: “I may lower my hands, I presume?”

“Yes. Go first, Staples. Now, then——”

Outside, Nelson, suddenly feeling faint, sat on the sand and tried to keep the trees from swaying. He saw Staples emerge, and then the German addressed as Lieutenant Haegel, but no others, for just then he toppled quietly over on the ground.

CHAPTER V
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Many of the subsequent details Nelson failed to see, for he was put aboard the Wanderer and consigned to his bunk, after which Sawyer, machinist’s mate and the nearest thing to a surgeon that the boat boasted, made a fairly neat job of cleansing and bandaging the wound.

“The bullet’s in there yet, Chatty,” he said with what sounded like professional satisfaction. “I can feel it and——”

“Ouch! So can I!” affirmed Nelson.

“Sure! But a doc will have it out in no time. If it hasn’t bust the bone you’ll be lucky, though.” With which cheering observation Sawyer went his way and Nelson laid there and ruefully considered his luck and tried to picture, through the evidence of his ears, what was going on “topside.”

Half an hour after the surprise party in the cave, the four prisoners were safely aboard, Cochran with much gusto had put a three-inch shell through their motor boat and the Wanderer was hiking back to New Bedford. There was a conversation between the captain and Lieutenant Haegel in the after cabin on the way back, attended by Ensign Stowell, but what was said no one else aboard ever knew. Nelson’s personal interest in the affairs of the four conspirators ended soon after he had worried down a small portion of diluted broth, for he went to sleep and slept until the Wanderer reached port. It was the rattling of the winch that aroused him. Presently Ensign Stowell entered.

“How’s the arm, Troy?” he enquired. “I was down here an hour ago, but you were sleeping.”

“It doesn’t hurt, sir,” replied Nelson, not very truthfully.

“Good! I’m going to send you up to the hospital and have that bullet out. You’d better stay there a few days. No use trying to use your arm until the stiffness has gone. When they discharge you, report back on board. We’ll be glad to see you again. I’ll send one of the men to help you dress. Good luck, Troy.”

It was Billy Masters who appeared to act the rôle of valet, but Billy divided between resentment at being kept out of the underground fracas and elation over the successful outcome of the Wanderer’s first engagement with the enemy. He expressed no sympathy for Nelson, but on the contrary regarded him with envy. While he handed Nelson his clothes and helped him to get into them he rattled on with his news.

“Some haul that was, Chatty, believe me. This fellow with the waxed mustache is a German army officer. He’s been living over at a place called Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard pretending his name was Schmitt or something. Made believe he was an American citizen and said he was writing a book about the island and its history and all that. The others don’t amount to much. One’s a German named Anhalt and another’s a sort of Russian; I forget what sort. The fellow who did the telegraphing is a poor mutt they picked up in Canada. Guess he hasn’t got any nationality. Seems the Secret Service has been after this Haegel guy for months but couldn’t find him. They knew he was in the country, though, and suspected he’d be mixed up in some wireless stunt. A couple of days ago the Canadian—if that’s what he is, which I don’t believe, because he don’t look like any Canadian I ever saw—goes into a drug store in New Bedford and gets a prescription filled. He had to wait awhile for it, you see, and while he was waiting he leans on the counter and does like this, see? Like he was working a telegraph key. Well, the drug fellow was one of these wireless fiends before the government put ’em out of business and he listened to what the guy was tapping out. First he says, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up’! like that, over and over. Then he says a lot of figures that don’t mean anything to the drug fellow, and after that some more nonsense. And he gets his medicine and goes out. But the drug fellow gets to thinking about him. He’s seen the guy around for about a month and he don’t ever seem to have anything special to do. So that evening he goes and tells his story to a fellow he knows who’s some sort of a United States attorney or something. The attorney hands it along to the Secret Service sleuths who’ve been snooping around looking for a wireless station somewhere on the Cape, do you see? After that it was easy. They find out where this poor guy lives and watch him and they see this Anhalt fellow come sneaking around at night and they hears ’em make a date for this morning at four o’clock and hears ’em speak of that island back there. The Hollis got the job first, but she had another date up the coast and so hands it over to us. What this Haegel fellow was doing was getting news of sailings from American ports from some pal in New York or somewhere by mail and then going over to that island and sending it by wireless to Swedish and Norwegian ships out to sea. All they had to do was pass it on when they got near enough the other side. Easy, eh? Don’t you say anything about it, for no one’s supposed to know.”

“Where did you hear it?” asked Nelson.

Billy blinked and hesitated. Finally: “Well, I was leaning over the rail aft last night after we left New Bedford and the cap and the junior was talking it over in the cabin and it sort of floated out!”

“You made believe you didn’t know anything about it!” charged Nelson. Billy Masters grinned.

“Sure! A fellow don’t repeat what he ain’t supposed to know, does he?”

“What are you doing now?” Nelson laughed.

“Oh, it don’t matter now. It’s all over. Gee, you’re a lucky guy, Chatty. You get swell grub in the hospitals!”

After a week of it, however, Nelson didn’t agree with Billy. But a minor surgical case such as he was is not likely to find hospital food quite satisfying. After the first two days Nelson’s normally healthy appetite returned in its full vigor and more than once he would gladly have exchanged his rations for the solid “chow” of the Wanderer’s forecastle. The bullet had slightly splintered the bone of the upper arm. The doctor called it the “humerus,” a name for it which Nelson entirely disapproved of. Two weeks was the period of convalescence, in any case, and for a full fortnight Nelson mooned around the hospital and the town. During that time the Wanderer came into port but once and Billy Masters and Lanky Staples came to see him and told him of their doings. He hadn’t missed much in the way of excitement, however, for the patrol boat had done nothing more adventurous than fire at a butter firkin, narrowly escape collision with a trawler in a fog and back into a wharf at Provincetown. Lanky expressed disgust at the monotonous emptiness of existence and Billy hinted darkly at deserting and enlisting in the British Army in Canada if things didn’t pick up pretty soon.

Nelson had plenty of time for thought during that dragging fortnight, and the more he thought the more he was inclined to agree with Lanky and Billy. He had enlisted in the Naval Reserves because he wanted to fight the Germans. Apprehending a spy or two might be useful work, but it wasn’t to his mind vital enough to the matter in hand, which was beating Germany. He had spoken very nearly the truth when he had told Ensign Stowell that it wasn’t exactly revenge for a personal injury inflicted that he sought, but he was, after all, quite human, and there were times when revenge seemed very desirable to him. He still refused to believe, in the face of all probability, that his father was really dead, although none of his relatives up in Maine shared his confidence. Nelson’s nearest relation now was his Uncle Peter, a mild-mannered, elderly man who had once served as mate on a lumber schooner but who now eked out a scant living as proprietor of a little store in the home town. Uncle Peter firmly believed that his younger brother was dead, and, or so it had seemed to Nelson, had taken a sort of sad satisfaction in so believing. He had frowned on the boy’s expressed determination of entering the Navy and had even done what little was in his power to thwart him. After a fortnight at home, a home now presided over by an ancient, sharp-featured woman housekeeper whom Nelson had grown into the habit of calling “Aunt Mehitabel,” although she was no relation, he had bidden a constrained good-bye to Uncle Peter and a sad one to Pickles and, possessed of the munificent sum of eighty-odd dollars, had made his way to Boston. There a cousin by marriage had taken him in overnight and the next day he had sought advice, enlisted in the Reserves and been sent to Newport.

The months that followed had been pleasant and busy, and he had succeeded for whole hours at a stretch in forgetting to be lonely. He had made many acquaintances but no firm friends. He didn’t make friends readily, it seemed, although he was naturally affectionate and, now that he no longer had his father to chum with, would gladly have spent some of that pent-up affection on one of his fellows. But that experience on the night of the fourteenth of October had sobered him even more than he himself realized and possibly his quiet, silent ways unintentionally held others off. He had done well at the station, for he had more or less nautical knowledge to build on and was keen to observe and quick to learn. He had sought to specialize in gunnery, but owing to the crowded condition of the station at the time and to confusion resultant on constant changes in plans and methods, he had made only slight progress when his transference to the coast Patrol Service came. He left the station with the rating of second-class seaman and with a good all-around knowledge of a seaman’s duties.

As the time to report aboard the Wanderer drew near he found that, while he was impatient for duty again, existence aboard the patrol boat appealed but little to him. He set his wits to work in the endeavor to find some means of securing a transfer, but when the morning of his discharge from the hospital arrived, he had failed so far to find any. The Wanderer was at Buzzard’s Bay and he was to go there by train, arriving at four-twenty in the afternoon. Between New Bedford and Buzzard’s Bay Fate stepped in and took a hand in his affairs.

The train was a leisurely one and stopped frequently. Nelson, hunched in the window end of a red velvet seat, with his canvas bag between his feet—that bag holding nearly all his worldly possessions until such time as the slow-moving arm of the Law, set in motion by Uncle Peter, had distributed his father’s estate—looked out on the pleasant vistas of villages and harbors and open water warming in the May sunlight and felt, for some reason, rather pathetic. It was what he himself would have called “a corking day,” and yet the very “corkingness” of it somehow depressed him. He was so busy feeling depressed that he scarcely noticed when, after leaving one of the small stations along the route, someone took the other half of his seat. Nelson merely drew into himself a bit more, kicked his bag a little further toward the window and went on being mournful. He didn’t see that the newcomer observed him more than once with kindly interest and seemed inclined to open a conversation. He was a man of apparently fifty years, with a pair of very deep blue eyes behind shell-rimmed glasses, a closely-cropped gray mustache and a sun-tanned face. He sat very erect in his seat, a light overcoat, carefully folded, laid across the knees of his immaculate steel-gray trousers, and at intervals ran his gaze over a Boston morning paper which, however, failed to hold his attention for long at a time. It was he who finally commenced the conversation.

“Transferring?” he inquired.

Nelson looked around rather blankly. “Sir?”

The man smiled. “I asked if you were transferring. I see you have your bag with you.”

“No, sir, I’m rejoining my boat at Buzzard’s Bay.”

The other nodded, darting a swift glance at the boy’s cap ribbon. “Wanderer, eh? Patrol boat?”

“Yes, sir.” Nelson was, in turn, doing some looking, too, and there was something about his neighbor that suggested authority. Still it didn’t do to talk too freely. They had been plentifully warned against that.

“Been on liberty?” pursued the man.

“No, sir. Hospital.”

“Really? Nothing serious, I hope.”

“No, sir.” The gentleman looked expectant of further details, but Nelson said no more. After a moment the former asked: “Who’s in command of the Wanderer?”

“Lieutenant Hattuck.”

“Hattuck, eh?” He seemed trying to recall something. Finally: “Yes, yes, of course. I thought I knew the name. Commanded the Andover in ’98. So he’s in the Reserve, is he? How large is your boat, the Wanderer?”

“Not very big,” answered Nelson, evasively. The other chuckled.

“You’re right, my boy, not to talk too much. I forget that—Hm, let me see.” He dipped into a pocket, drew forth a case and selected from it a card which he passed across. “Merely to reassure you,” he explained. Nelson accepted the bit of engraved cardboard in surprise, a surprise which increased when he read the name on it, the name of a man high in the Naval affairs of the nation.

“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t know——” began Nelson in some confusion.

“Naturally you wouldn’t,” laughed the other. “I’m not tagged, thank goodness! You see, I’ve been on liberty too,” he added smiling, “but not, I am glad to say, in hospital. I’ve been visiting my family for a week. And now, like you, I’m going back to duty.”

“Yes, sir,” murmured Nelson. As the Navy man made no offer to take his card back the boy held it in his hand, wondering what to do with it. “I guess there’s plenty to do in Washington just now, sir,” he hazarded.

The other nodded. “A terrific amount of work, yes. I felt guilty most of the time I was away; maybe I enjoyed my vacation more for that reason,” he added with his contagious chuckle. Nelson smiled in sympathy.

“It’s like playing hookey, sir,” he suggested.

“That’s it. How do you like the Reserve service—er—by the way, what’s your name?”

“Troy, sir. I like it very well, only—I’d rather be on the other side.”

“I see. Yes, of course. Well, I dare say you’ll get there in time. How long have you been serving?”

“Only about five months. I joined in November. I was at Newport until a month ago. Do you think, sir——”

“Well?” asked the man, encouragingly, as Nelson hesitated.

“Do you think I’d have stood a better chance to get across soon if I’d joined the Navy instead of the Reserves, sir?”

“I don’t think that would have made much difference, Troy. You youngsters have to wait your turns, you know. We try to select men for the other side who have seen service, but we can’t be too particular now, for there’s a ship asking a complement every day or two and you new men are getting your chances fast. Navy enlistment has been slower than we hoped for so far, but I think it will pick up. Meanwhile you must console yourself with the knowledge that what you are doing along the coast is just as important as what our lads are doing in British waters. It’s very necessary work, even if it isn’t spectacular.”

“Yes, sir, I suppose it is, only I want to learn gunnery, and there isn’t much chance on our boat. I’m hoping that if I don’t get across pretty soon I’ll get transferred to the Atlantic Fleet.”

“Gunnery, eh?” mused the other. “I see.” He was silent a minute. Then: “Just write your name on the back of that card, will you?” he asked. “Here’s a pencil. That’s it, thanks. I’ll tuck this away and perhaps I can do something for you before long. Now tell me,” he went on as he slipped the card into a leather wallet, “about that little adventure you had a couple of weeks ago, for I take it that it was the Wanderer that brought in that German spy, Lieutenant—Haegel, isn’t it?—and his cronies.”

So Nelson told of the incident, and afterwards, led on by his sympathetic audience, told about everything else he knew! It was a veritable orgy of talk for Nelson, and later on, no longer under the spell of the other’s personality, he wondered how he had ever come to do it! They parted at a junction soon after Nelson had completed an account of the attack on the Jonas Clinton, and his new acquaintance shook hands and said he hoped they would meet again and got off without further reference to that half promise. But Nelson rejoined the Wanderer in quite a hopeful frame of mind and in much better spirits than when he had left New Bedford. Of course, he reflected, it might be that nothing would come of that encounter, but there had been something about the Navy official suggesting that he had a good memory, and that his half promise was as good as another man’s written agreement.

CHAPTER VI
ON THE THAMES

Those on the Wanderer were all so glad to see him back, and showed it so positively, that he felt almost disloyal in wanting to leave the boat. Ensign Stowell, although he only returned Nelson’s salute when the latter stepped aboard, later shook hands with him and enquired about the arm and was “so awfully decent,” as Nelson called it to himself, that he found himself wishing that Fate would somehow fix it so that when his transfer came, if it did come, he would find himself still under the Ensign.

A week passed, and then another, and he began to think that, after all, he was destined to knock about Cape Cod in the Wanderer for the rest of the war. He had not mentioned the encounter with the Navy official to anyone, not even to Billy Masters, who would have heard it if anyone had. And as the days went by and it became more and more evident that nothing was to come of that meeting on the train, he was glad he had kept it to himself. He wondered whether the official had lost the card with the name scrawled on the back or whether he had just decided not to bother about the affair.

Meanwhile life on the Wanderer was by no means lacking in interest. They had been allowed, at last, sufficient ammunition for gun practice and this was held several times a week. Nelson was assigned to the after gun crew, under Lanky Staples, and in the course of the next few weeks obtained quite a little instruction and experience. Lanky had a fine contempt for the toy, as he called the three-pounder, but managed to make some creditable hits with it. Nelson bought a book on ordnance and ammunition and studied it in his leisure time, determined that sooner or later he would qualify as gunner’s mate. He got practice in sighting and loading and showed enough promise to cause Cochran to take him under his wing and teach him a good deal of practical gunnery, which was the only kind the gunner’s mate knew.

The Wanderer flitted up and down the coast in fair weather and foul, although there was not much of the latter that Spring, and had her moments of interest. There was a submarine scare early in June and one breezy morning the patrol boat went dashing off to the south, quite hopefully, in obedience to orders. But the rumored sub didn’t materialize and they ran into a heavy sea and broke a propeller shaft and had to wallow into New London for repairs. It was a three-day job to install a new shaft and Nelson and Billy Masters went sight-seeing on various occasions and found quite a lot to interest them. Some four hundred reserves from the Newport station had recently been dumped down on a New London pier and were using it as barracks, and they discovered several acquaintances amongst them and had a rather good time. They attended a dance at the hotel one evening—although Nelson didn’t dance, went over a mine layer, shopped along State street and visited the submarine base up at the old Navy Yard.

The latter excursion happened in an odd way. Nelson and Billy were admiring some perfectly gorgeous strawberry-pink and nile-green shirts in a haberdasher’s window one afternoon when they heard someone say:

“I’ll buy you a dozen of those if you’ll put them on.” The speaker was a chap in sailor’s togs whose cap ribbon bore the legend “U. S. Submarine Base.” He was a good looking fellow, about two years Nelson’s senior, slim, sun-browned and merry, and Nelson took to him on the instant. But it was Billy who answered; Billy always had an answer ready.

“Sure, I’ll put ’em on,” he said. “I’ll take the pink ones.”

“Right-o! Me for you, son! Come on in and pick them out.”

But Billy declined to carry his bluff any further. “Tell you what I will do, though,” he hedged. “I’ll take ’em now and wear ’em the day we march into Berlin!”

“Nothing doing, old man. I want to live to see it. What’s the Wanderer? Mine-layer?”

“No, coast patrol,” answered Billy. “We bust a shaft the other day chasing a U-boat and are in for repairs.”

“Chasing a U-boat? Sounds exciting. Catch her?”

“We would have, but she wasn’t there,” replied Billy gravely. “Are you up at the submarine base? Do they allow folks in there?”

“Yes. And they don’t. But if you want to look us over I’ll fix it for you. What are you doing now? Want to run up and see us? I’ll give you transportation.” He nodded at a vividly blue roadster automobile at the curb. “That’s my boat, and if you don’t mind squeezing a bit——”

“Phew!” exclaimed Billy. “Do they supply you with those dinguses? Guess I’ll transfer to the submarine branch and get me one.”

The car was a handsome affair of a world-famous foreign make. Their new acquaintance laughed.

“No, I had that and brought it with me. We’re about three miles from town and it’s a long way to walk. What do you say? Want to take a ride?”

“Surest thing you know,” agreed Billy. “Who gets in first?”